QUALITY ASSURANCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION

D.M.REKKAS
Associate Professor
School of Pharmacy, University of Athens
HELLAS
rekkas@pharm.uoa.gr
 CONTENTS
What is Quality-Quality Assurance
What is missing?
The systems perspective Quality by Design
The stakeholders
The Bologna Process
The European Schools of Pharmacy
The EU vision
What to do The White Paper
 DEFINITIONS

Quality is the totality of features and

characteristics of a product or service
that bear on its ability to satisfy given
needs (ASQ)

Value to the Customers

 DEFINITIONS
Quality Assurance: all those planned or
systematic actions necessary to provide
adequate confidence that a product or service
will satisfy given needs (ASQ)

Making sure that Quality is what it should be

 WHAT IS MISSING?
How Quality can be implemented in the first
place Quality by Design-Built in Quality
How we can assure Quality if we do not know
how to implement it?
Quality is a depended variable
It is there if it is built in the provided service
Then we can assure with adequate evidence
that it is constantly satisfies given needs
QUALITY IS A DEPENDED VARIABLE
 THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS AS A
SYSTEM-QUALITY BY DESIGN
What is a System ?
A network of interdependent components that work
together to accomplish the aim of the system. The
system should have an aim.If there is no aim,there is
no system. (Deming)
Coming together of parts, interconnections and aim
The real power lies in the way the parts come
together and are interconnected to fulfill some
purpose. (Plsek)
Set of elements stand in interrelations. (Bertanlanffy)
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
The properties of the system are the properties of
the interrelations
 THE 3 STEPS FOR QUALITY
AND THE PDSA CYCLE
Design
PLAN DO

Implementation

ACT Assurance STUDY

SYSTEMS APPROACH
 THE STAKEHOLDERS
and some questions

Who are they and which are their needs?

Are their needs of equal weight?
How these needs can be met through the
educational process in order to achieve
Quality?
How we will assure Quality?
Who will accredit the process and its
outcome?
Every School alone and against the others or
all the schools together?
 THE STAKEHOLDERS

The students
Their parents
Employers
Regulatory bodies
Taxpayers
Other schools
Professional communities etc
 and THEIR NEEDS
Knowledge-Innovation
Technical skills
Low cost/short duration of studies
Salaries after graduation (Max or Min?)
Passing through or learning
Curricula: solid or changing
Education or practical training
Quality of Health Care
THE MAJOR STAKEHOLDERS

SOCIETY
STUDENTS
EMPLOYERS

WHO SHOULD BE THE LEADING ONE

AND WHO HAS THE REAL POWER ?
 SOME OF THEIR NEEDS
The Governments want to keep the cost low
The students want short duration/ low cost
studies and to find well paid jobs quickly
The Employers want made to order
scientists at the lowest possible cost but very
productive
The society needs high quality health care
and low cost studies
 IN SHORT
All these needs have to be met through the
educational process

society students employers

staff
 QUESTIONS
Can we satisfy all these needs simultaneously ?
Is the educational process capable of meeting these
needs?
By whom and how this transformation will be carried
out?
Can the University staff lead the way?
Do we have the knowledge the commitment and the
resources required?
Competition or Partnership?
The state is considering all stakeholders and their
needs of equal importance?
 THE BOLOGNA PROCESS

The Bologna Process

The ENQA-European Association for QA in HE
The role of the Universities-EUA
The vision and the outcome
Is something missing?
 MAJOR POINTS
3 cycles,ECTS,Diploma supplement
Mobility
Employability
Student centered learning
Life long learning
Awareness on QA in HE
Publication of the standards & guidelines for
QA in HE (2005) as a response to the Berlin
communique (2003)
 MORE TO EXPLORE
Guidelines and standards or policies for the
implementation of Quality?
Which needs ?
All needs of equal weight?
Which are the in depended and depended variables?
If Quality is the depended variable how will be
achieved ?
Can we manage the educational process effectively
to achieve quality? Do we own/ understand the
process?
Curricula frozen or changing to address the changing
needs?
 APPROACHING THE RIGHT
QUESTIONS
Students with innovative culture or practical skills?
Preparation of students with social responsibility
(society needs first) or ready to be employed?
Staff responsive to the societal needs through the
educational and research process or staff making
papers with high impact factor?
Each staff member/University alone to survive the
competition or team work and partnership?
Discussion with all the stakeholders on common
understanding or just following orders?
Quality Standards or Quality Culture?
 IS SOMETHING MISSING?

However relatively few institutions seem

to take a holistic approach to Quality
improvement

Source : Trends V: Universities shaping the European Higher

Education Area, EUA report to the ministers of education
conference 05/07 London
 ITS RELATION TO KEY FINDINGS
National understanding of the reforms/Support not
enough.
While 82% of the respondents have 3 cycles
in many cases,reform in structures seems to be
taking place in advance of the reforms of substance
and content and without link to the institutional
strategy
Many institutions stated that national requirements
obliged them to introduce the first cycle
In some cases the two systems run in parallel
Stakeholders unaware of the reforms in curricula
Societal dialogue needs to be strengthen
 AN INSPIRING KEY FINDING

Awareness that concern for Quality

must be at the heart of the system

The Norwegian example : The Quality

reform
 EAFP-SCHOOLS OF PHARMACY
Understand the gaps in achieving Quality
Teamwork-Financial support
White paper on Quality in Pharmacy
Education
Discuss the reforms in Pharmacy curricula
Adopt the changes required
Agenda for the implementation of changes by
the schools (end before 2010)
Evaluation of the results.
Next Changes considered (PDSA cycle)
 EAFP-SCHOOLS OF PHARMACY
EAFP should be transformed towards a think
tank for Quality improvement in Pharmacy
Education involving all stakeholders.
Its vision should be to implement the
changes required for Quality to as many
schools as possible.Perhaps this must be its
only action for the next years.
Its white paper and outcome for Quality in
European Pharmacy Education should inspire
the educational community.
 UNDERSTANDING QUALITY
What we need to do is learn to work in the
system, by which I mean that everybody,
every team, every platform, every division,
every component is there not for individual
competitive profit or recognition, but for
contribution to the system as a whole on a
win-win basis.
It is not enough to do your best.You must
know what to do and then do your best.
W.E.Deming
THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR YOUR ATTENTION